Hermen Hulst has confirmed in a new interview that Sony will continue to make live service games.
As reported by Insider Gaming, Hulst told Japanese gaming outlet Famitsu that the company will “continue to focus on developing live service titles along with the story-driven single-player titles that our players want.”
Hulst went on to explain why Helldivers 2 convinced them that they should continue in this direction, saying:
“We are learning a lot as we establish the ability to develop high-quality live service titles within SIE. Helldivers 2 attracted many players through continuous content provision, and achieved results that support the potential of live service titles.”
Hulst is now managing a direction that was started under PlayStation’s former CEO, Jim Ryan, but not one that Sony could brush aside.
In the same way that Nintendo was forced, albeit briefly, to commit to making mobile games, Sony cannot ignore the general trend of live service. PlayStation fans may point and jeer at Sony’s biggest disaster in Concord, and their failure to capitalize on their Bungie purchase with Destiny 2.
But as we now know, the 61.7 million PlayStation units sold are not being matched by sufficient sales of first party games like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. That game’s 11 million units sold may be big for Insomniac, but it reflects a poor attach rate for the console, and led to layoffs at the studio.
Of course, Concord’s shutdown and Destiny 2: The Final Shape failing to meet expectations has led to Firewalk Studios’ closure and layoffs in Bungie as well. Sony has learned the hard lesson that live service is definitely not an easy fix to their problems.
Still, Sony is looking at the dominance of games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Roblox, and seeing the need to create games like that of their own. To that end, they are partly correct to see Helldivers 2’s success as the right step forward, but with that they have also taken two steps back.
As we know, Sony chose to pull the game from Steam from all the countries and regions that don’t have PSN. That decision has hampered Arrowhead Game Studios’ initial success, and now they have to navigate several pitfalls between Sony and their own fans to continue seeing success of any kind.
It should be clear that Sony needs to have at least one or two live service title under their belt, and to have one that’s been more successful than Helldivers 2 has. Hulst’s statement does not indicate that they know exactly why Helldivers 2 was successful, and what they need to replicate from it to make Marathon, Fairgame$, or any of their other upcoming live service games successful as well. We really don’t know what to expect when it comes to this for now, but perhaps Sony can surprise us yet.
